What
is the name of Hanzel & Gretel's father in the 13
July 1947 section? (Answer at bottom of the page)

Just before his induction
into the Army in May 1942, Will Eisner was able
to write and pencil a few extra Spirit sections which
could be published after he was working for the armed
forces. One of these stories was published on 19 August
1942 as Crime Primer - M.U.R.D.E.R.,
which was finished and inked by Lou
Fine.

This is an
unusual tale in that each page of the tale is full of
alliteration, which when put together with the other
pages spell out murder.

The second
page of the section (after the splash page shown above)
starts off like this:

Murdock
was found to be a Major
by The Spirit.

The next page finds Dolan
questioning an unscrupulous
underdog of the underworld
called Umbrella
Bill, who leads Dolan to find the
villain Ugly
Joe. Unfortunately
The Spirit and Dolan come across Ugly
Joe too late as he is unexpectedly
shot dead!

On the following page we
find Dolan returning
to the scene of the crime. There, The Spirit recovers
a piece of evidence: a rusty
revolver, owned
by Major Murdock. Heading back to Wildwood Cemetery to
check his records,
The Spirit finds that the revolver
matches up with the shots fired at Rita
Royce. Royce
was renowned as
a reckless
blackmailer and the evidence seems to point at Murdock
having shot Rita.
Rita's brother
was none other than Ugly Joe, whom Dolan suspects killed
Murdock in revenge with a dagger.

Page five of the section
sees The Spirit deciding
to stage a drama
whilst Dolan deduces
who killed Ugly Joe.

The sixth page finds Ebony
evacuating the
hideout of Umbrella Bill as there seems to be evidence
of a ghost:

Umbrella Bill
explains that although he exterminated
Ugly Joe, he had nothing to do with the murder of
Murdock. Dolan reveals the cowled figure to be The
Spirit.

The
penultimate page finds the real
Major Murdock turn up to reveal
that he had been reported
lost at Rowen
some time ago where he suffered from a lapse of memory
until recently.
His rascally
twin brother took his place and ruined
Major Murdock's reputation.
The Major, in a fit of desperation, tried to kill his
twin brother first by firing the revolver
at him, but unfortunately Rita
took the shot for him. Trying again with the dagger, the
Major succeeded in killing his brother.

The case
solved, Dolan returns home to find that Ellen has made
him a nice bowl of alphabet soup!

A fun story,
although Eisner certainly pushes some of the
alliterations (see the images with Ebony above!).